TC 

774 

S844s 


STEVENS 

SKETCH  OF  THE  PANAMA 
CANAL 


THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 


A  SKETCH  OF 

PANAMA  CANAL 


ITS      ,. 
PAST,  PRESENT  AND  POSSIBLE  FUTURE 


January,  1908  JNO.  F.  STEVENS 


-re 
-nt 


A  SKETCH  OF 
THE  PANAMA  CANAL 

ITS 

PAST,  PRESENT  AND  POSSIBLE  FUTURE 


The  conception  of  the  possibility  of  uniting,  by  artificial  means, 
the  waters  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  oceans,  was  a  resultant  of  the 
many,  and  often  visionary  projects  entertained  by  the  bold,  and  gen- 
erally unscrupulous  spirits  who  not  only  ruled  Spain  when  she  was  at 
the  zenith  of  her  power,  but  carried  her  flag  and  prestige  to  all  parts  of 
the  New  World,  as  it  was  then  known.  With  few  exceptions,  every 
agitation,  great  or  small,  of  any  part  of  the  human  race,  which  has  cul- 
minated in  a  movement  to  seize,  explore  and  hold  distant  regions  by 
force  of  arms,  has  been  dictated  by  avarice.  The  fabulous  reports 
brought  to  Spain  by  Columbus  and  by  the  early  adventurers  who  fol- 
lowed him,  of  the  wealth  in  gold,  silver  and  precious  stones  in  the  new 
countries,  raised  up  a  horde  of  legalized  bandits,  whose  exploits  his- 
tory has,  with  more  or  less  accuracy,  set  forth. 

Columbus,  as  we  know,  died  without  knowledge  of  what  lands  he 
had  touched,  believing  them  to  be  a  part  of  what  was  then  popularly 
called  Cathay,  or  what  is  now  known  as  the  East  Indies.  Balboa,  by 
his  trip  into  the  unknown  wilderness,  first  demonstrated  that,  beyond 
the  lands  so  far  only  really  seen  from  a  ship's  deck,  there  existed 
another  body  of  water,  which  was  finally  proven  to  dwarf  the  Atlantic 
in  size,  and  which  was  separated  from  it,  by  only  a  comparatively  nar- 
row strip  of  land.  Balboa  early  fell  a  victim  to  the  jealousy  of  his 
fellow-adventurers,  was  not  permitted  to  live  to  extend  his  discoveries, 
but  he  was  followed  by  others  as  enterprising  and  unscrupulous. 


The  timbers  of  the  first  ship  which  plowed  the  waters  of  the 
Pacific  Ocean.,  manned  by  white  men,  as  far  as  history,  or  tradition,  if 
you  please,  tells  us,  were  laid  in  a  small  bay  on  the  southern  side  of  the 
isthmus  of  Darien,  by  one  of  these  adventurers,  and  these  timbers 
were  cut  on  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic,  hewn  into  shape  and  carried 
across  the  isthmus  to  the  shore  of  the  Pacific,  and  were  there  put 
together  for  the  first  voyage  into  the  unknown  sea.  This  work  was 
performed  by  natives,  seized  and  held  as  slaves  by  the  Spaniards,  whom 
without  such  enforced  labor  could  have  done  little,  but  whom  with  the 
cross  in  one  hand  and  the  sword  and  torch  in  the  other,  forced  the 
civilization  of  mediaeval  Europe,  onto  the  greater  part  of  the  new 
world. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  the  vision  of  this  small  band  of  Spanish  ex- 
plorers, taking  a  month  with  their  miserable  slaves  to  carry  their  small 
ship  across  the  isthmus,  to  the  vision  of  some  future  great  admiral, 
steaming  with  a  fleet  of  modern  war  ships,  manned  by  the  pride  and 
glory  of  the  United  States,  making  the  same  trip  in  8  hours — but 
the  latter  is  a  prospect  that  should  be  realized  within  a  comparatively 
short  time. 

The  conquests  of  Peru,  and  the  spoliation  of  her  wealth  by  Pizarro 
and  the  men  who  followed  him,  are  matters  of  history.  The  most 
natural  route  by  which  all  the  spoils  of  conquest,  which  were  claimed 
by  the  Crown  of  Spain,  could  be  sent  home  was  by  the  west  coast 
of  South  America,  thence  across  the  isthmus  and  over  the  Atlantic  to 
Spain.  This  practice,  with  the  necessity  for  a  port  on  the  south  side 
of  the  isthmus  brought  into  existence  the  city  of  Panama,  and  from 
Panama  northward  across  the  isthmus,  the  Spaniards  constructed  a 
road,  paved  with  stone,  wide  enough  for  two  heavily  laden  mules  to 
pass,  and  over  which  for  years  crossed  and  re-crossed  the  pack  trains, 
which  kept  open  the  lines  of  communication  between  the  Pacific  Ocean 
and  the  plate  ships  of  Spain.  This  old  road  still  exists,  and  the  writer 
has  traveled  over  miles  of  it  still  in  fairly  good  condition,  and  giving 
ample  evidence  of  the  thoroughness  with  which  such  works  were  then 
carried  out. 

All  of  these  millions  of  treasure  did  not  reach  Spain:  Panama 
in  those  early  days  was  accounted  the  richest  city  on  earth,  in  pro- 
portion to  the  number  of  its  inhabitants,  and  we  can  be  well  assured 
that  it  took  full  toll  of  all  treasure  passing  its  portals.  Then,  too, 


the  English  lay  in  wait,  by  trail  and  on  sea,  and  Drake,  Hawkins, 
Morgan  and  the  rest,  played  the  part  of  the  eagle  to  the  fish  hawk, 
robbing  the  latter  early  and  often  of  his  prey.  Buccaneer  Morgan 
finally  captured  the  original  city  of  Panama,  burned  it,  butchered  many 
of  its  people,  and  scattered  the  rest  into  the  jungles,  from  which  years 
afterwards  they  collected  and  built  the  city  of  Panama  which  now 
exists,  and  which  is  near  the  south  end  of  the  canal  now  under  con- 
struction. 

History  alleges  that  the  idea  of  cutting  a  ship-way  across  the 
isthmus,  to  avoid  the  long  and  dangerous  passage  around  the  Horn, 
took  shape  in  those  early  days,  even  going  to  the  extent  of  carrying  out 
of  extensive  explorations  to  select  a  feasible  route.  Be  that  as  it  may, 
nothing  tangible  resulted  for  more  than  300  years.  Possibly,  this 
delay  can  in  part  be  explained  by  an  edict,  which  it  is  said  that  Philip 
the  Second  promulgated,  that  of  prohibiting  any  Spanish  subject  from 
even  mentioning  such  a  project  on  penalty  of  death,  and  which  edict, 
it  is  said,  has  never  been  revoked,  and  there  are  yet  people  who  point 
to  this  law,  as  a  proof  of  the  great  wisdom  of  Philip — a  claim  which 
the  writer  is  not  prepared  to  dispute. 

Lord  Nelson  suggested  a  canal  at  Nicaragua  in  1780,  and  early 
in  the  last  century  Baron  Humbolt  is  said  to  have  mapped  several 
routes,  one  of  which,  was  over  the  line  practically  now  adopted.  Spain 
also  woke  up  again  along  in  1820  and  talked  canal,  but  as  she  lost 
control  of  the  isthmus  about  that  time,  she  did  nothing.  Along  about 
1840  several  of  the  Central  American  states  tried  to  interest  Louis 
Phillipe  in  the  project,  but  without  success.  The  rush  of  travel  and 
business  resulting  from  the  discovery  of  gold  in  California  in  1849, 
so  stimulated  interest  until  as  a  consequence  the  Panama  Eailroad  was 
built  and  opened  in  1855.  From  this  time  on,  different  schemes  were 
proposed,  and  in  1879,  the  French  becoming  interested,  surveys  were 
carried  on  by  Lieutenant  Wyse,  a  Frenchman,  who  a  year  before  had 
secured  a  concession  from  Colombia  to  build  a  ship  canal. 

Ferdinand  DeLesseps,  with  the  prestige  of,  and  fresh  from  the 
completion  of  the  Suez  Canal,  took  up  the  matter,  and  a  congress  con- 
vened by  him  in  Paris  decided  in  favor  of  a  canal  from  Limon  Bay 
(Colon),  on  the  Atlantic  side,  to  Panama  Bay  on  the  Pacific  side. 
This  Congress  also  decided  a  sea-level  canal  should  be  the  type  to  be 
built. 


Previous  to  this  time,  in  1852,  the  United  States  had  undertaken 
and  carried  out  at  spasmodic  intervals,  surveys  for  a  canal  at  Nica- 
ragua, and  in  1889  an  American  company  was  formed  for  the  purpose 
of  constructing  a  canal,  along  the  lines  developed  at  the  latter  place, 
but  nothing  of  practical  importance  was  accomplished,  beyond  the  com- 
pletion of  surveys. 

Attention  had  also  been  called  to  what  is  known  as  the  Darien 
Eoute,  some  100  miles  eastward  from  the  Panama  Eoute,  and  it  has 
been  thoroughly  reconnoitered,  though  no  close  instrumental  surveys 
have  been  made. 

Some  features  of  this  route  are  favorable :  There  are  fairly  good 
harbors  at  each  end,  and  it  is  the  shortest  route  across  the  isthmus,  of 
any  of  the  three  which  time  and  study  have  selected  as  the  only  ones 
worthy  of  consideration,  but  its  adoption  necessitates  the  construction 
and  maintenance  of  a  tunnel  nearly  five  miles  long — a  proposition 
which  owing  to  its  size  and  importance,  and  the  difficulty  of  securing 
an  absolutely  safe  and  sound  roof,  it  is  believed  our  best  engineers 
would  hesitate  to  endorse.  Still,  the  Darien  Eoute  has  its  able  advo- 
cates— some  yet  on  the  floor  of  Congress. 

Right  here,  the  writer  gives  as  his  individual  opinion,  that  grant- 
ing an  inter-oceanic  canal  is  to  be  built,  that  physically,  financially,  and 
for  all  other  reasons,  and  after  all  arguments  are  balanced,  the  decision 
choosing  the  Panama  Eoute,  so-called,  is  the  correct  one. 

In  1881,  after  organization  and  preliminaries  had  been  attended 
to,  active  operations  by  the  DeLesseps  Co. — it  having  secured  the 
Colombian  concession  from  Lieutenant  Wyse — was  begun.  The 
Canal  Company  purchased  the  Panama  Railroad  from  the  com- 
pany which  up  to  that  time  (1882),  had  owned  and  operated  it. 
Besides,  from  its  location,  laying  as  it  does,  not  only  along  but  upon, 
in  a  number  of  places,  lands  actually  needed  for  the  construction  of 
the  canal,  its  importance  as  an  adjunct  to,  as  furnishing  the  necessary 
means  of  transporting  not  only  the  supplies  over,  but  the  waste  ma- 
terial from  the  canal  prism,  its  control  by  the  canal  builders  became — 
and  is  yet — an  absolute  necessity. 

The  history  of  the  DeLesseps  attempt  to  build  the  Panama  Canal 
is  set  forth  at  such  length  and  in  such  details  in  various  publications 
that  a  lengthy  resume  of  it  here  is  unnecessary. 


As  noted  previously,  the  original  decision  was  for  a  sea-level  water- 
way, but  as  time  went  on,  as  vast  sums  of  money  were  raised  and  spent 
without  commensurate  progress,  it  was  decided  to  abandon  the  sea-level 
idea  and  substitute  locks,  and  to  the  trained  eye  of  an  engineer  the 
history  of  those  years,  as  money  became  harder  and  harder  to  raise,  is 
plainly  written  on  the  face  of  the  work.  First  a  two-lock  plan  was 
attempted,  then  more  and  more  locks  were  added,  until  the  holes  in  the 
ground  for  these  locks,  which  the  writer  found,  apparently  increased  in 
number  as  the  bank  account  grew  less — a  pathetic  story,  needing  no 
words  to  understand. 

In  1888,  the  company  broke  with  a  crash  that  attracted  world- 
wide attention,  and  which  before  its  echoes  died  away  dragged  many  a 
name  before  honored,  into  the  dust  and  undoubtedly  hastened  De- 
Lesseps'  death.  At  the  time  of  cessation  of  the  work,  it  is  likely  more 
than  $250,000,000  had  been  spent,  and  conservatively  not  over  1-6  of 
the  actual  work  had  been  accomplished.  And  fully  more  vital,  a  satis- 
factory plan  to  care  for  the  most  important,  in  fact  the  one  prominent 
engineering  feature  of  the  whole  enterprise — the  control  of  the  Chagres 
River  and  its  tributaries,  had  not  been  solved  or  adopted. 

In  1891,  the  company  having  been  reorganized,  an  extension  of  the 
concession  was  granted  by  the  Colombian  Government,  and  work  was 
again  begun,  and  continued  in  a  very  small  way — just  enough  to  hold 
the  concession — until  the  United  States  took  over  from  the  new  French 
company  all  its  property,  plant  and  interest  in  the  project,  by  the  pay- 
ment to  it  of  $40,000,000,  which  arrangement,  all  things  considered, 
was  a  fair,  without  being  a  great  bargain  for  the  United  States. 

As  certain  rights  and  privileges  not  held  by  the  French  company, 
and  consequently  not  transferred  to  the  United  States,  were  considered 
necessary,  negotiations  looking  to  the  making  of  an  arrangement  with 
Colombia,  were  begun,  and  after  long  delays  a  fairly  satisfactory  treaty 
was  formulated,  which,  however,  was  rejected  by  Colombia  in  1903 — 
quite  unexpectedly,  it  is  said,  by  the  officials  of  the  United  States.  But 
by  a  curious  coincidence,  shortly  after  the  rejection  by  Colombia  of  the 
proposed  treaty,  the  Province  of  Panama,  an  integral  part  of  Colombia, 
seceded  from  its  allegiance  to,  and  by  one  of  those  comic  opera  revo- 
lutions, separated  from  Colombia,  and  set  up  an  independent  republic 
of  its  own.  How  this  was  accomplished  is  perhaps  a  matter  of  correct 


public  history — perhaps  not.  There  are  critical  people  yet,  who  in  the 
blindness  of  partisan  spirit,  still  decry  the  alleged  actions  of  the  United 
States  at  the  time  of  this  revolution,  but  an  honest  judgment  would 
indicate  that  this  matter  should  be  considered  as  a  closed  incident. 
Kegardless  of  any  ethical  question  involved,  there  would  seem  to  be 
times  in  political  history,  when  the  principle  of  the  end  justifying  the 
means,  would  apply.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the  practical  result  was,  that 
the  United  States  was  enabled  to  effect  a  satisfactory  treaty  with  the 
new  Republic  of  Panama,  failing  in  which,  it  would  probably  have 
been  forced  to  revert  to  Nicaragua,  if  it  desired  to  build  a  canal,  as  it 
had  fully  determined  to  do.  Among  other  details  of  the  arrangement 
with  Panama,  was  the  payment,  under  certain  terms,  of  $10.000,000 
by  the  United  States  to  the  new  republic — thus  the  United  States 
obtained  a  clear  field  from  all  parties  interested,  by  the  payment  of 
$50,000,000. 

Under  this  treaty  the  United  States  gained  the  sovereignty  over  a 
strip  of  land  10  miles  in  width,  5  miles  on  either  side  of  the  center  line 
of  the  canal,  extending  from  the  usual  3-mile  limit  in  the  Carribean 
Sea  to  the  same  limit  in  the  Pacific  Ocean  at  Panama.  This  right, 
however,  is  not  clearly  understood  by  the  average  man :  It  is  not  a  fee 
simple,  but  it  is  probably  broad  enough  to  answer  all  purposes. 

It  grants  to  the  United  States  power  to  locate,  construct,  main- 
tain and  forever  operate  a  ship  canal,  connecting  the  two  oceans,  with 
ample  power  to  establish  governmental,  including  police  and  sanitary 
regulations.  Excluded  from  the  ten-mile  strip  are  the  two  cities  of 
Colon  and  Panama.  The  power  of  the  United  States  to  regulate  sani- 
tary matters,  however,  extends  over  these  two  cities.  The  United 
States  also  has  authority,  in  case  it  becomes  in  its  opinion  necessary,  to 
preserve  order,  to  enter  these  cities  with  armed  forces  and  take  pos- 
session of  them.  The  United  States  also  practically  guarantees  the 
Eepublic  of  Panama  all  needed  assistance,  armed  or  otherwise,  to 
enable  it  to  preserve  its  independence. 

Since  the  occupancy  of  the  canal  zone  by  the  United  States,  it 
has  maintained  large  bodies  of  police  and  marines,  both  in  a  highly 
efficient  condition,  and  until  about  one  year  ago,  kept  a  war  vessel  in 
commission  in  the  harbor  of  Panama.  There  is  little  likelihood  of 
serious  trouble,  unless  as  between  the  two  political  parties  into  which 


the  people  of  Panama  are  about  equally  divided.  If,  however,  the 
present  government  of  Panama  should  in  its  blindness  attempt  to 
seriously  antagonize  our  interests,  probably  another  cardboard  revolu- 
tion would  curiously  enough  be  pulled  off,  and  a  more  complaisant 
government  be  set  up,  or,  as  many  declare,  the  United  States  would 
openly  assume  control  of  the  entire  Eepublic,  either  by  martial  law,  or 
by  some  form  of  territorial  government.  Be  that  as  it  may,  the 
situation  is  entirely  safe,  providing  too  much  is  not  taken  for  granted. 
The  ways  of  the  Latin  Americans  are  not  our  ways,  and  the  entente 
cordial  can  best  be  preserved,  by  our  keeping  a  paving  block  close  by 
to  drop  the  hand  onto,  in  case  ordinary  argument  should  need  a  point. 

The  Act  of  Congress  which  authorized  the  President  to  proceed 
with  the  construction  of  the  canal,  placed  almost  unlimited  power  in 
his  hands,  as  to  details  of  route,  type  and  size  of  canal,  the  chief 
limiting  clause  which,  it  may  be  noted,  leaves  much  to  his  judgment, 
reading  as  follows:  The  Canal  "shall  be  of  sufficient  capacity  and 
depth  as  shall  afford  convenient  passage  for  the  vessels  of  the  largest 
tonnage  and  greatest  draft  now  in  use  and  such  as  may  be  reasonably 
anticipated." 

In  order  to  obtain  the  advantage  of  the  best  engineering  advice 
upon  the  many  general  problems  involved,  the  President  appointed  a 
board  of  consulting  engineers,  the  members  being  eminent  in  their 
profession,  both  American  and  European.  After  a  visit  of  inspec- 
tion to  the  isthmus  and  due  consultation,  the  board  made  two  reports, 
the  majority  one  favoring  a  sea-level,  and  the  minority  a  lock  plan, 
both  reports,  however,  concurring  in  the  other  general  features.  After 
a  long  time,  the  whole  matter  was  referred  to  Congress.  The  latter 
body,  after  examinations  and  debates,  voted  in  favor  of  the  minority, 
or  lock-level  plan — the  one  under  which  work  is  now  being  prosecuted. 

It  would  require  very  much  more  time  than  is  now  available 
to  sum  up  even,  the  various  reasons  which  the  writer  believes  justify 
the  final  decision  in  favor  of  a  lock  canal.  He  went  to  the  isthmus 
as  Chief  Engineer,  rather  in  favor  of  a  sea-level  plan,  which  he 
abandoned  after  personal  study  of  the  conditions.  As  he  has  reason 
to  believe  his  influence  was  quite  potent  in  the  decision,  he  feels  that 
this  one  service  to  the  country  is  enough  for  a  life  time,  in  helping  to 
save  the  fatal  consequences  of  a  wrong  conclusion,  as  he  knows  a 
decision  in  favor  of  a  sea-level  canal  would  have  been. 


Briefly  expressed,  is  an  extract  from  a  report  to  the  Canal  Com- 
mission, of  date  January  26th,  1906,  as  follows : 

"The  sum  of  my  conclusions  is,  therefore,  that  all  things  con- 
sidered, the  lock  or  high-level  canal  is  preferable  to  the  sea-level  type, 
so-called,  for  the  following  reasons : 

"It  will  provide  a  safe  and  a  quicker  passage  for  ships,  and  there- 
fore will  be  of  greater  capacity. 

"It  will  provide,  beyond  question,  the  best  solution  of  the  vital 
problem  of  how  safely  to  care  for  the  flood  waters  of  the  Chagres  and 
other  streams. 

"Provision  is  made  for  enlarging  its  capacity  to  almost  any  ex- 
tent at  very  much  less  expense  of  time  and  money  than  can  be  provided 
for  by  any  sea-level  plan. 

"Its  cost  of  operation,  maintenance,  and  fixed  charges  will  be  very 
much  less  than  any  sea-level  canal. 

"The  time  and  cost  of  its  construction  will  be  not  more  than  one- 
half  that  of  a  canal  of  the  sea-level  type. 

"The  element  of  time  might  become,  in  case  of  war,  actual  or 
threatened,  one  of  such  importance  that  measured,  not  by  years  but 
by  months,  or  even  days,  the  entire  cost  of  the  canal  would  seem 
trivial  in  comparison. 

"Finally,  even  at  the  same  cost  in  time  and  money  for  each  type, 
I  would  favor  the  favor  the  adoption  of  the  high-level  lock  canal  plan  in 
preference  to  that  of  the  proposed  sea-level  canal. 

"I  therefore  recommend  the  adoption  of  the  plan  for  an  eighty- 
five-foot  summit-level  lock  canal,  as  set  forth  in  the  minority  report 
of  the  Consulting  Board  of  Engineers. 

''Very  respectfully, 
"JNO.  F.  STEVENS,  Chief  Engineer." 

To  go  back  to  the  time  when  the  United  States  took  formal  pos- 
session by  purchase  from  the  French  company  and  by  treaty  with 
Panama :  This  Commission  appointed  by  the  President  to  supervise 

8 


the  work  proceeded  to  the  isthmus,  began  the  work  of  organization 
of  the  preliminaries,  and  the  thousand  and  one  details  naturally  per- 
taining to  such  an  enterprise,  received  under  such  conditions,  in  a  tropi- 
cal climate — and  the  mention  of  the  latter  condition  brings  us  directly 
to  the  underlying  important  feature  of  sanitation,  and  the  consequent 
good  health  of  employes  without  which  nothing  but  failure  could  re- 
sult. 

Probably  no  spot  on  earth  previous  to  two  years  ago,  had — and  it 
largely  deserved  it — a  worse  reputation  for  diseases  of  various  kinds, 
than  Panama,  It  will  never  be  known  how  many  employes  of  all 
colors  lost  their  lives  during  the  French  occupancy.  Very  little  was 
known  of  modern  sanitation,  at  least  very  little  was  practiced  by  them, 
and  even  if  their  finances  had  held  out,  it  is  probable  death  and  disease 
would  have  conquered  them  in  the  end.  But  by  the  knowledge  our 
army  medical  men  had  gained  in  Cuba  as  to  the  true  cause  and  means 
of  preventing  yellow  fever,  that  white  man's  scourge  of  the  tropics  has 
been  eliminated,  and  the  percentage  of  malaria  and  malarial  fevers  has 
been  reduced  more  than  one-half.  Colon,  at  the  northern,  and 
Panama,  at  the  southern  terminus  of  the  canal,  were,  two  and  a  half 
years  ago,  two  of  the  most  forbidding,  dirtiest,  and  from  a  white- 
man's  point  of  view,  unhealthiest  places  on  earth.  Today,  they  are- 
and  have  been  for  more  than  a  year  past,  especially  Panama,  cleaner 
and  more  sanitary  than  the  average  New  England  city ;  paved  through- 
out, provided  with  modern  sewerage  and  water  systems,  they  are  at 
once  a  tribute  to  the  energy  and  intelligence  of  those  Americans  who 
made  them  possible,  and  a  standing  reproach  to  those  Americans  who 
for  the  sake  of  a  little  printed  notoriety,  have  so  far  prostituted  them- 
selves, as  to  send  forth  to  the  world,  statements  which  were  not  only 
false,  but  palpably  known  by  themselves  to  be  false  when  issued. 

This  work  of  sanitation  and  municipal  improvements  in  these  two 
cities  has  cost  the  United  States  a  very  large  amount  of  money,  which 
the  treaty  provides  it  shall  be  repaid  after  a  long  term  of  years,  and 
there  is  a  reasonable  probability  we  will  be  so  repaid,  but  if  we  are  not, 
the  value  of  this  work  to  us  will  be  four-fold  of  all  that  it  cost,  in  the 
health  and  life  of  our  employes. 

The  same  careful  attention  to  sanitation  has  been  given  to  all  parts 
of  the  zone  where  our  employes,  either  whites  or  blacks,  work  or  live, 
and  today  the  health  conditions  of  the  canal  zone  are  better  than  they 

9 


are  along  lands  in  the  United  States  bordering  on  the  Gulf  of  Mexico, 
and  it  may  be  believed  the  zone  is  a  preferable  place  of  residence.  The 
heat  is  not  intense,  as  measured  by  the  thermometer,  but  the  humidity 
is  excessive,  and  without  doubt  the  climate  is  a  trying  one  on  this 
account,  to  the  average  person  accustomed  to  the  high  latitudes.  This 
objection  is  provided  for,  however,  by  the  United  States  granting  to 
all  its  employes  coming  from  the  United  States  a  six-weeks'  yearly 
leave  of  absence  with  pay.  This  provision,  with  the  practice  of 
ordinary  good  habits,  will  carry  the  average  man  along  in  good  health, 
and  as  safely  as  he  will  probably  be  in  the  United  States. 

The  Commission  at  Ancon,  near  Panama,  and  at  Colon,  have  large 
and  well  equipped  hospitals,  at  which,  free  of  charge,  all  its  employes, 
white  or  black,  are  given  the  most  modern  medical  care  and  treatment 
— all  under  the  charge  of  experienced  doctors  and  trained  nurses.  The 
privileges  of  these  hospitals  are  not  only  free  to  all  employes  but  they 
are  also  complusory,  and  as  a  result  from  month  to  month,  the  sick  and 
death  rate  of  the  zone  per  capita,  has  been  gradually  decreasing,  until 
now  it  compares  favorably  with  that  of  the  average  American  city. 
Certain  diseases,  like  Typhoid,  Diptheria,  etc.,  have  never  been  pre- 
valent there,  and  as  far  as  Yellow  Fever  is  concerned,  it  is  now  simply 
a  matter  of  the  enforcement  of  strict  quarantine  regulations  against 
other,  and  less  fortunate  countries,  to  keep  the  zone  entirely  free  of  it. 

The  government  of  the  zone  is  administered  by  the  Canal  Com- 
mission through  one  of  its  members  who  acts  as  Civil  Administrator, 
having  direction  of  the  courts,  police  force,  schools,  post  offices, 
customs,  and  all  the  functions  which  go  to  make  up  a  well  ordered 
government.  Law  and  order  are  as  well  maintained  and  life  and 
property  are  as  safe,  as  in  well  settled  parts  of  the  United  States.  Up 
to  this  time,  no  case  is  recalled  that  has  been  brought  to  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court,  and  possibly  the  latter  has  no  jurisdiction. 
There  are  three  circuit  court  judges,  who  sitting  en  bane,  form  a 
supreme  court.  All  the  judicial  and  civil  machinery  has  thus  far 
worked  smoothly,  and  it  is  believed  it  is  well  adapted  to  serve  the 
purpose  for  which  it  was  created. 

The  length  of  the  proposed  canal,  from  deep  water  to  deep  water, 
will  be  about  50  miles,  the  width  varying,  as  below,  these  widths  as 
noted  being  at  the  extreme  bottom  of  the  canal  sections : 

10 


From  the  Carribean  Sea,  near  Colon,  1,000  feet  for  about  7  miles 
to  Gatun  Dam  and  Locks;  from  Gatun  Locks  a  minimum  width  of 
1,000  feet  through  Gatun  Lake  (to  be  formed  by  the  Gatun  Dam)  over 
a  distance  of  about  26  miles;  thence  about  2  miles  of  a  width  of  500 
feet  to  the  north  end  of  Culebra  Cut ;  then  300  feet  wide  for  about  3 
miles ;  then  200  feet  for  about  4  miles ;  then  300  feet  wide  for  2  miles, 
to  the  locks  of  Pedro  Miguel,  the  south  end  of  the  Culebra  Cut ;  then 
through  Lake  Sosa,  some  5  miles,  1,000  feet  minimum  width,  to  the 
locks  of  La  Boca ;  then  3  miles  to  deep  water  in  the  Pacific  Ocean  with 
a  width  of  1,000  feet. 

These  dimensions  are  given  in  some  detail,  as  showing,  from  their 
generous  proportions,  that  a  fair  rate  of  speed  can  at  all  places  be 
maintained  by  ships  while  passing  through  the  canal,  excepting 
through  the  locks  proper,  which  comprise  but  an  insignificant  portion 
of  the  entire  distance. 

A  modification  of  the  plans  for  locks  and  dams  near  the  southern 
end  of  the  canal,  has  been  recently  made,  which  will  be  referred  to 
later  on. 

A  brief  study  of  the  map  will  show,  that  owing  to  the  peculiar 
twist  of  the  isthmus,  near  its  narrowest  part,  the  actual  direction  of  the 
canal  is  not  east  and  west,  as  popularly  supposed,  but  from  northwest, 
at  the  Atlantic  end,  to  southeast,  at  the  Pacific  end,  and  that  in  fact, 
Panama,  on  the  Pacific  side,  is  22  miles  east  of  Colon,  on  the  Atlantic 
side,  so  that  the  use  of  the  terms  north  and  south  ends  of  the  canal,  is 
entirely  proper. 

In  formulating  the  plans  for  any  canal  at  Panama,  the  one  great 
overshadowing  engineering  problem  that  had  to  be  solved  before  success 
could  be  expected,  was  the  control  of  the  flood  waters  of  the  Chagres 
River,  and  its  large  tributaries.  This  river,  rising  in  the  mountains  of 
the  Darien  country  some  100  or  more  miles  east  of  the  canal,  flows 
almost  directly  west,  thence  by  an  abrupt  turn,  its  course  changes  to  the 
north  and  northwest,  emptying  into  the  Carribean  Sea  about  5  miles 
west  of  Limon  Bay,  in  which  the  canal  finds  its  northern  terminus. 
Thus,  for  nearly  30  miles  the  canal  follows  the  valley  of  the  Chagres 
River — a  stream  which  fluctuates  in  the  dry  season,  from  a  flow  of  600 
to  nearly  110,000  cubic  feet  per  second,  in  the  rainy  season. 

11 


At  several  points  along  this  part  of  the  river,  the  valley  narrows 
in,  and  at  one  point  (Gatun)  it  is  less  than  1£  miles  in  width,  at  an 
elevation  of  100  feet  above  sea  level,  and  it  is  at  this  point,  suitable 
foundations  having  been  found  to  exist,  the  gigantic  works  known  as 
the  Gatun  Locks  and  Dam  were  projected,  and  are  now  in  course  of 
construction.  The  dam  is  to  be  of  earth,  will  be  about  7,800  feet  long 
on  top,  100  feet  in  width  on  top,  and  ^  mile  wide,  or  thick,  at  the 
bottom.  It  will  be  135  feet  high,  and  will  contain  approximately 
22,000,000  cubic  yards  of  material,  the  greater  part  of  which  will  be 
placed  by  powerful  hydraulic  pumps,  thus  insuring  solidity  of  con- 
struction, that  only  nature  under  favorable  conditions  can  rival.  This 
material  will  be  clay,  with  a  very  slight  mixture  of  fine  sand — an  ideal 
material,  to  produce,  so  placed,  a  mass  comparable  only  to  a  mountain 
— one  that  will  resist  water,  decay,  earthquake,  or  any  known  force  of 
nature  or  man,  within  imaginable  limits. 

It  will,  by  closing  up  the  valley  of  the  Chagres  Eiver,  form  a  lake 
of  some  30  odd  miles  in  length,  as  measured  by  the  main  valley,  and 
covering  approximately  an  area  of  140  square  miles — really  a  vast 
inland  fresh- water  sea;  the  elevation  of  the  water  being  at  normal  85 
feet  above  mean  sea  level,  this  water  above  the  dam,  through  which 
passes  the  line  of  navigation,  being  from  a  maximum  of  75  feet  to  a 
minimum  of  45  feet  in  depth  over  the  entire  distance. 

Through  the  high,  natural  ground  at  the  east  end  of  the  dam 
will  be  built  triple  locks,  in  duplicate,  each  lock  lifting  or  lowering,  as 
the  case  may  be,  a  ship  28  1-3  feet,  a  total  of  85  feet,  or  the  difference 
in  elevation  of  Gatun  Lake,  formed  by  the  dam,  and  the  sea-level 
waters  of  the  Atlantic  Ocean  which  will  be  brought  to  the  locks  by  the  7 
miles  of  open,  1,000  feet  wide  channel,  mentioned  above.  On  other 
very  high  ground,  nearly  in  the  center  of  the  dam,  will  be  constructed 
the  necessary  regulating  works,  by  which  the  height  of  the  water  in  the 
lake  will  be  controlled,  storing  it  up  for  the  dry,  and  allowing  it  to 
flow  gradually  away  during  the  flood  periods,  as  conditions  may  require. 

These  regulating  works,  and  the  main  locks  also,  will  rest  their 
entire  length  and  breadth  on  rock — not  earth;  not  mud;  but  rock, 
really  a  species  of  sand  rock  sufficiently  hard  to  insure  first-class  foun- 
dations, and  to  set  at  rest  all  fears  of  the  stability  of  the  works.  That 
the  character  of  these  foundations  is  first-class,  was  known  long  ago  to 
the  people  directly  responsible  for  them,  and  had  been  amply  proven 
by  numerous  borings  and  test-pits,  but  to  satisfy  a  senseless  clamor 

12 


set  up  and  encouraged  by  ignorant  critics,  the  Secretary  of  War — 
in  whose  hands  next  to  the  President,  is  the  general  direction  of  all 
canal  affairs — took  a  committee  of  three  of  the  best  known  and  ablest 
of  our  American  engineers  last  year  to  Gatun.  These  gentlemen,  after 
a  thorough,  personal  examination,  concurred  in  a  report  which  fully 
confirmed  all  previous  ones  of  the  Chief  Engineer,  and  which  should 
have  settled  for  all  time  the  questions  raised;  but  very  recently  the 
Commission  has  given  out  a  statement — quite  superfluous — that  ad- 
ditional borings  have  been  made,  and  that  rock  exists  everywhere  under 
the  proposed  locks,  and  a  splendid  foundation  is  assured — another 
case  of  the  Dutch  taking  Holland. 

The  earthen  dam  will  rest  on  a  stratum  of  impervious  clay,  nearly 
200  feet  thick,  lying  on  the  same  kind  of  rock  that  the  locks  will  rest 
upon.  Altogether  the  foundations  of  both  locks  and  dam  are  ideal, 
and  all  notions  to  the  contrary  can  be  dismissed  from  the  mind. 

The  control  of  the  flood  waters  of  the  Chagres  is  simple,  and 
the  plan  can  be  easily  understood  by  anyone,  whether  engineer  or  not : 
It  is  merely  accomplished  by  the  formation  of  a  lake,  into  which  the 
flood  waters  will  pour,  at  such  distances  from  the  sailing  line  of  ships 
that  these  flood  waters  can  be  entirely  ignored.  Supposing  the  Con- 
necticut Eiver  rose  in  flood,  and  that  Long  Island  Sound,  or  rather 
its  waters,  extended  ten  miles  up  the  river,  from  thirty  to  fifty  feet 
deep,  the  valley  being  from  1£  to  3  miles  wide:  What  effect  then 
would  the  flood  in  the  Connecticut  Eiver  have  on  a  ship  sailing  in  the 
Sound,  a  mile  away  from  the  point  where  the  river  joined  the  Sound  ? 
None  whatever — the  ship's  people  would  not  know  that  there  was  a 
flood,  unless  from  some  slight  discoloration  of  the  water.  And  this  is 
all  there  is  to  it — simple  of  solution,  like  most  problems,  when  sub- 
jected to  the  analysis  of  cold  common  sense,  and  a  remedy  of  like  char- 
acter applied. 

Leaving  the  lake,  the  line  of  the  canal  enters  the  famous  Culebra 
Cut,  which  will  be  about  9  miles  in  length,  and  is  directly  through 
the  backbone  of  the  Cordilleras — the  watershed  between  the  Atlantic 
and  Pacific  Oceans.  The  mountains  along  the  line  of  the  canal 
rise  to  an  extreme  height  of  some  1200  feet  above  the  sea,  and  probably 
it  was  from  some  one  of  these  peaks,  that  Balboa  first  caught  sight  of 
the  peaceful  ocean,  the  waters  of  which  ripple  as  calmly,  and  which 
present  a  view  at  Panama,  which  for  loveliness  is  said  to  rival  that  of 
the  Bay  of  Naples. 

13 


The  bottom  of  the  canal  prism  in  the  Cut,  allowing  for  the 
40  feet  of  water,  will  then  be  45  feet  above  sea  level,  the  surface  of 
the  water  being  the  same  elevation  as  that  of  Gatun  Lake,  or  plus 
85.  At  the  highest  point  the  top  of  the  Cut  was  originally  some 
280  feet  above  the  bottom,  but  the  French  dug  away  some  120 
feet,  and  now  in  depth,  there  are  about  120  feet  yet  to  go  down. 
This  figure,  however,  does  not  adequately  express  the  relative  amount 
of  work  to  be  done.  When  the  United  States  assumed  charge  of  the 
enterprise,  changes  in  line,  increases  in  width,  a  more  proper  adjust- 
ment of  slopes,  etc.,  which  were  made,  all  contributed  to  swell  the  total 
yardage  to  be  moved.  An  approximate  summary  of  the  various  items 
showed  about  60,000,000  cubic  yards  of  excavation  to  be  taken  from 
the  prism  in  Culebra  Cut,  of  which  probably  80%  is  rock,  of  dif- 
ferent degrees  of  hardness,  and  this  vast  amount  of  material  was 
not  to  be  dug  out  and  placed  in  waste  banks  immediately  alongside  of 
the  excavation,  but  the  greater  part  must  be  hauled  miles  by  railway 
trains  to  find  room  for  disposal. 

The  work  of  drilling,  of  loosening  up  by  blasting,  ready  for  the 
big  steam  shovels,  while  appalling,  was  only  one  feature:  Hundreds 
of  miles  of  track  must  be  laid,  locomotives  by  the  hundred,  cars  by 
the  thousand,  and  all  the  myriad  special  adjuncts  of  shops  and  mach- 
inery, requisite  to  repair  and  maintain — all  such  plant  had  to  be 
created,  and  when  the  writer  reached  the  zone  the  last  day  of  July, 
1905,  he  thinks  he  may  truly  say,  he  faced  about  as  discouraging  a  prop- 
osition as  ever  presented  itself  to  a  construction  engineer. 

Passing  to  the  south  end  of  Culebra  Cut,  the  locks  and  dam  at 
Pedro  Miguel  are  reached.  Here,  by  duplicate  locks,  with  a  lift  or 
drop  of  30  feet,  as  the  case  may  be,  the  change  from  the  85-foot 
level,  is  to  be  made  to  the  level  of  Lake  Sosa,  55  feet  above  the 
level  of  mean  tide  in  the  Pacific  Ocean.  The  plan  adopted  two  years 
ago  was  to  build  two  earthen  dams  at  La  Boca,  near  the  shores  of 
Panama  Bay,  closing  up  the  valley  of  the  Bio  Grande,  in  precisely 
similar  manner  to  the  plan  adopted  at  Gatun,  thus  forming  a  lake, 
4  miles  in  length,  giving  a  minumum  depth  of  45  feet  of  water 
with  a  sailing  channel  not  less  than  1,000  feet  in  width.  In  Sosa 
Mountain — an  isolated  rock  butte — against  which  the  dams  were  to 
rest,  two  locks  en  flight,  in  duplicate,  each  with  a  drop  of  27|  feet, 
were  to  be  constructed,  thus  delivering  ships  practically  into  a  3-mile 
sea-level  channel,  leading  to  deep  water  in  Panama  Bay  and  the 
Pacific  Ocean. 

14 


Thus  the  water-way  really  was  to  consist  of  one  stretch  of  canal; 
then  of  a  long,  wide  deep  lake  (Gatun)  ;  then  throughout  a  channel 
(Culebra  Cut),  of  varying  widths;  then  through  a  smaller  lake;  and 
finally  through  another  channel  into  the  waters  of  the  Pacific  Ocean. 
This  was  practically  the  plan  of  the  minority  of  the  Consulting  Board 
of  Engineers,  but  has  very  lately  been  modified'  to  this  extent : 

It  is  now  decided  to  build  the  dam  and  locks  at  the  south  terminus, 
some  3£  miles  further  inland,  and  thus  to  extend  the  sea-level  sec- 
tion up  and  through  what  has  been  known  as  the  proposed  Lake 
Sosa.  This — particularly  if  the  press  accounts  are  correct — is  a  wise 
move.  The  writer  for  long  months  fruitlessly  sought  by  borings  to 
discover  suitable  foundations  for  locks  and  dam  at  or  near  Miraflores. 
the  point  finally  selected.  Since  that  time,  however,  changes  in  the 
plans  of  the  locks,  having  the  effect  of  dropping  the  walls  and  bottom 
of  the  same,  have  rendered  sites  available  now  for  these  works,  that  a 
year  ago  were  not  tenable;  and,  too,  it  is  an  open  question  if  such 
changes  in  the  lock  plans,  if  not  altogether  unnecessary  and  question- 
able, have  not  added  millions  to  their  cost,  far  in  excess  of  any  saving 
in  changes  of  location,  and  have  not  added  to  their  efficiency,  economy, 
or  safety  of  operation. 

This  is  a  point,  however,  upon  which  the  writer  reserves  his  judg- 
ment, until  he  is  more  fully  conservant  with  all  the  factors  in  the  case. 
In  any  event,  the  best  plan  should  be  chosen,  regardless  of  expense 
within  reasonable  limits.  In  regard  to  this  change  the  writer  quotes 
from  the  same  report  made  by  him  to  the  Canal  Commission,  referred 
to  previously,  as  of  date  January  26,  1906 : 

"As  regards  the  plan  and  alignment  of  the  canal  at  the  Pacific 
end,  I  am  still  inclined  to  my  former  expressed  opinion  that,  on 
account  of  the  military  and  sanitary  features,  the  location  of  all  the 
locks  at  Miraflores  and  Pedro  Miguel,  instead  of  part  of  them  at 
La  Boca,  with  the  necessary  dam  at  the  same  place,  will  be  found  more 
satisfactory;  but  as  the  latter  plan  will  cost  about  $6,000,000  less  to 
construct  than  the  former  one,  I  am  ready  to  waive  my  views  in  favor 
of  the  latter  plan,  although  simply  on  account  of  the  difference  in  the 
estimated  cost"  which  shows  that  the  matter  was  then  seriously  con- 
sidered, and  that  "there  is  nothing  new  under  the  sun." 

The  first,  or  so-called  Walker  Commission,  was  unfortunate  in 
many  ways,  which  are  immaterial  here.  The  second  commission — the 

15 


one  the  writer  had  to  do  with — was  more  fortunate  in  its  make-up,  but 
it  had  its  limitations.  When  he  reached  Panama  the  last  of  July, 
1905,  conditions  could  have  been  much  worse,  but  they  were  bad 
enough.  No  real  start  at  any  effective  work  on  the  canal  proper  had 
been  made,  no  adequate  organization  had  been  effected,  sanitary  re- 
forms were  really  just  beginning,  little  new  plant  had  been  provided 
and  little  that  was  absolutely  necessary  had  been  ordered.  In  the 
organization  which  existed,  no  co-operation  was  apparent,  and  no 
systematic  plans,  as  far  as  the  writer  could  discover,  had  been  formu- 
lated towards  the  carrying  out  of  the  work  along  lines  promising  any 
degree  of  success. 

And — worse  than  all,  over  and  above,  in  the  diseased  imagination 
of  the  disjointed  force  of  white  employes,  hovered  the  angel  of  death, 
in  the  shape  of  Yellow  Fever,  a  number  of  cases  of  which  were  then 
prevailing,  and  from  which  several  deaths  had  occurred.  What  many 
of  the  intelligent  men  seemed  to  expect  was  an  order  from  Washington 
to  abandon  the  work  and  go  home.  To  provide  housing  for  this  army, 
to  properly  feed,  to  instill  into  them  faith  in  the  ultimate  sucess  of 
the  work,  to  weed  out  the  faint-hearted  and  incompetent,  to  create  an 
organization  fitting  to  undertake  the  tremendous  work,  and  to  fill  its 
ranks  with  the  proper  material,  was  a.  task  of  heroic  proportions.  No 
one  will  ever  know,  no  one  can  realize  the  call  on  mind  and  body  which 
was  made  upon  a  few  for  weary  months,  while  all  the  necessary  prelimi- 
nary work  was  being  planned  and  carried  forward,  and  no  attempt 
was  or  could  be  made  to  carry  on  actual  construction,  until  such  pre- 
liminaries were  well  in  hand.  And  the  only  gleams  of  light  and 
encouragement,  were  the  weekly  arrivals  of  newspapers  from  the  States, 
criticizing  and  complaining  because  the  dirt  was  not  flying. 

While  the  French  turned  over  to  us  square  miles  of  engines,  cars, 
dredges  and  tools  of  every  description,  very  few  of  them  were  of  any 
value,  and  those  that  were  used  were  only  used  until  proper  modern  ones 
could  be  substituted,  but  as  time  wore  on,  as  new  plant  arrived  and 
was  put  in  service,  as  proper  food  and  housing  was  provided,  as  im- 
proved health  conditions  prevailed,  as  the  majority  saw  that — uncon- 
sciously, perhaps,  to  them — a  real,  effective  organization,  working 
steadily  but  surely  towards  a  definite  and  intelligent  end,  had  been 
made,  the  whole  situation  changed  for  the  better ;  and  that  the  organiza- 
tion was  effective,  the  plant  well  designed,  and  all  the  preliminary  work 
was  fairly  well  done,  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  construction  of 

16 


the  canal  since  the  real  beginning,  without  any  addition  to  plant  al- 
ready in  hand  or  under  order,  or  material  change  in  organization,  has 
gone  steadily  on,  and  in  amount  has  surprised  the  friends  and  con- 
founded the  enemies  of  the  enterprise. 

When  Congress  finally — in  June,  1906 — decided  upon  the  type  of 
canal,  then  operations  went  on  faster  and  faster,  and  the  real  start 
towards  digging  began  in  January,  1907,  and  the  amount  of  work  done 
steadily  increased,  until  in  March  last,  750,000  and  in  April  889,000 
cubic  yards  were  removed  from  Culebra  Cut — a  record  which  stood 
until  a  month  ago. 

In  passing,  it  is  well  to  say  that  the  date  of  the  completion  of  the 
canal  depends  upon  the  completion  of  two  items  of  the  work — that  of 
Gatun  Locks  and  that  of  Culebra  Cut,  and  that  some  of  the  yardage 
now  being  taken  out  and  reported  monthly,  while  necessarily  must  be 
done  sometime,  could  with  perfect  propriety  be  deferred,  much  of  it, 
for  four  years,  thus  saving  the  interest  on  the  cost  of  such  work  for 
the  period  named,  and  from  a  business  point  of  view  undoubtedly 
should  be  postponed. 

Eeference  has  been  made  to  the  importance  of  the  Panama  Rail- 
road to  the  work  of  construction:  Lying  as  it  does  immediately 
along  the  line  of  the  canal,  it  affords  the  only  practicable  means  for 
disposing  of  the  millions  of  yards  of  waste  material  coming  from 
Culebra  Cut.  Huge  systems  of  tracks  have  been  planned  and  laid  in 
the  Cut,  on  which  are  handled  hundreds  of  work  trains  loaded  by  the 
steam  shovels  with  rock  and  earth,  these  systems  of  work  tracks  being 
connected  at  proper  intervals  with  the  main  tracks  of  the  Panama 
Railroad,  over  which  the  trains  run  to  the  dumping  ground,  or  waste 
banks,  some  of  the  latter  being  15  miles  distant. 

A  view  into  and  over  the  Cut  from  several  points  is  one  long  to  be 
remembered,  and  one  which  has  never  been  seen  before:  Practically 
at  a  glance,  one  can  see  from  20  to  40  of  the  largest  steam  shovels  ever 
built,  dozens  of  trains,  shuttling  back  and  forth,  air  and  other  power 
rock  drills  by  the  hundreds,  compressor  plants,  machine  shops — all 
clipping  away,  with  thousands  of  men  black  and  white,  working  on 
the  many  and  varied  things  there  are  to  do;  and  over  all,  hangs  a 
pall  of  coal  smoke  that  would  gladden  the  heart  of  a  suburban  resident, 
if  he  could  only  find  some  one  to  complain  to  about  it. 

17 


The  rejuvenation  of  the  Panama  Bailroad  was  one  of  the  hardest 
problems  that  had  to  be  met  in  getting  ready  to  push  the  canal  con- 
struction. It  had  but  a  single  track,  practically  no  sidings  or  station 
buildings,  a  worn  out  telegraph  line,  no  terminals  worthy  the  name, 
and  motive  power  and  rolling  stock  that  were  obsolete  20  years  before. 
While  a  fair  amount  of  new  equipment  had  been  ordered,  little  or 
nothing  had  been  done  to  place  the  road  in  proper  shape  to  handle  the 
heavy  business  suddenly  thrown  upon  it.  Traffic,  both  that  pertaining 
to  the  canal  and  commercial,  local  and  through,  was  nearly  at  a  stand- 
still; thousands  of  tons  of  through  freight  were  piled  in  cars,  ware- 
houses, and  on  docks,  and  some  of  these  shipments  had  lain  from 
3  months  to  a  year  and  a  half,  in  the  hands  of  the  railroad  company, 
and  in  many  cases  even  the  shipping  papers  and  records  of  this  freight 
had  been  lost. 

All  these  congested  conditions  had  to  be  cleaned  up,  the  road  re- 
built, reorganized  in  its  operating  features  and  personnel,  taking  care 
at  the  same  time  of  a  constantly  increasing  traffic.  All  this  was  ac- 
complished, so  that  the  Panama  Eailroad  one  year  ago  was  placed  in  a 
condition,  both  from  a  physical  and  operating  standpoint,  fit  to  compare 
favorably  with  the  average  of  our  best  American  roads. 

The  creation  of  Lake  G-atun  will  necessitate  the  re-location  and 
rebuilding  of  some  40  miles  of  the  railroad,  to  place  it  above  the  lake 
level,  which  work  is  already  under  way,  and  will  be  completed  before 
the  work  on  the  canal  proper  is  done.  Meanwhile,  the  road  is  handling 
the  canal  business,  as  well  as  the  commercial  business,  the  latter  being, 
however — as  it  has  been  for  the  last  two  years — badly  handicapped  by 
the  very  inefficient  service  of  the  Pacific  Mail  Steamship  Co.,  whose 
ships  form  the  connecting  link,  between  it,  at  Panama,  San  Francisco 
and  the  various  ports  of  call  along  the  Central  American  and  Mexican 


Among  the  great  problems  that  had  to  be  solved,  was  the  securing 
and  care  of  the  vast  army  of  skilled  and  unskilled  laborers,  the 
clerical  and  supervising  forces  requisite  to  carry  on  the  work.  The 
skilled  forces  were,  and  are  still,  recruited  in  the  United  States  by 
agencies  established  here  at  various  points.  At  first,  much  difficulty 
was  experienced  in  securing  the  right  class  of  men  in  the  requisite 
numbers,  owing  to  the  bad  reputation  which  the  isthmus  bore,  and  this 

18 


trouble  was  needlessly  continued  long  months,  by  the  malicious  attacks 
through  the  press,  by  some  of  our  American  writers,  whose  motives, 
to  be  charitable,  can  only  be  ascribed  to  a  morbid  desire  for  notoriety. 
By  patient  and  intelligent  efforts,  however,  the  situation  improved, 
until  a  year  and  more  ago  it  became  satisfactory,  and  today  the 
supply  of  first-class  material  along  the  lines  of  clerical  force  and  skilled 
labor,  is  in  excess  of  the  demand.  The  high  rate  of  wages  paid,  which 
together  with  the  other  privileges  enjoyed  by  these  employes,  make 
employment  under  the  Commission,  usually  much  more  attractive  than 
any  they  can  secure  in  the  United  States. 

The  supplying  of  the  unskilled  labor  has  been  much  more  perplex- 
ing and  unsatisfactory.  Practically  all  of  this  class  of  labor  in  the 
tropics,  has  for  years  been  drawn  from  one  source — that  of  the  blacks 
living  in  the  different  islands  in,  and  adjacent  to  the  Carribean  Sea, 
and  it  is  largely  from  these  islands  that  the  present  force  of  laborers  is 
recruited. 

Their  value  as  laborers,  however,  is  very  low  under  any  condition, 
and  the  writer  soon  found  in  taking  charge  of  the  work,  that  if  the 
canal  was  to  be  completed  in  any  reasonable  time,  or  expense,  some 
other  source  for  obtaining  labor  must  be  developed,  not  only  to  obtain 
a  better  grade  and  surer  supply,  but  to  eliminate  the  sense  of  security 
these  people  possessed,  by  the  feeling  that  they  had  control  of  the 
situation  by  having  a  labor  monoply.  Several  plans  were  discussed  and 
finally  an  agent  was  sent  to  Europe,  who  after  some  delay  succeeded  in 
directing  to  the  isthmus,  through  the  various  steamship  companies,  a 
stream  of  Gallegos,  the  people  living  in  the  Biscayan  Provinces  of 
Spain,  Italians  and  Greeks;  so  that  for  some  time  the  labor  situation 
has  been  well  in  hand  as  far  as  numbers  are  concerned. 

The  grade  is  low,  and  the  consequent  result  will,  of  course,  be  a 
large  increase  in  the  cost  of  the  canal,  as  compared  with  what  the  work 
would  cost,  if  carried  out  where  the  best  ordinary  labor  could  be  pro- 
cured. The  writer  favored  the  introduction  of  Chinese,  whom  from 
personal  experience,  he  knows  to  be  superior  from  every  point  of  view, 
but  the  threads  of  political  necessity  sometimes  run  through  the  warp 
even  of  business,  so  that  from  some  unexplained  reason  he  was  never 
able  to  get  the  authority  necessary  to  carry  his  plan  into  effect.  The 
negroes  are  paid  ten  cents  and  the  Europeans  twenty  cents  per  hour, 
in  gold.  There  are  some  20  odd  thousand  of  the  former  and  prob- 

19 


ably  6,000  of  the  latter,  and  the  net  result  is  that,  taking  our  best 
white  labor  here  in  the  United  States  as  a  basis  of  comparison,  a  day's 
labor,  by  reason  of  lack  of  efficiency  of  the  blacks,  is  costing  the  United 
States  on  the  canal  work  at  least  3£  dollars,  and  this  will  swell  the  final 
cost  of  the  canal  many  millions.  The  nationality  of  these  laborers, 
their  hours  of  work,  and  their  rates  of  pay,  have  about  the  same  effect 
on  labor  in  the  United  States,  as  if  the  work  were  located  in  the  planet 
Mars,  but  as  .political  factors,  they  probably  have  value. 

All  employes,  white  and  black,  of  every  grade,  are  given  free  of 
rent,  with  free  lights  and  fuel,  comfortable,  furnished  houses.  The 
task  of  supplying  all  these  wants  was  a  tremendous  one.  While  we 
took  over  from  the  French  many  hundreds  of  houses  of  various  classes 
and  capacities,  all  of  them  had  to  be  rebuilt  and  made  sanitary,  and  in 
addition,  new  dwelling-houses  and  quarters  by  the  thousands,  hotels  and 
eating-houses,  hospitals,  school  houses,  court  houses,  post  offices,  jails, 
commissary  buildings,  fire  engine-houses,  shops  and  railway  buildings 
of  every  description,  club  houses,  and,  indeed,  the  list  alone  is  too  long 
even  to  enumerate,  had  to  be  provided. 

On  the  pay-rolls  of  the  building  construction,  alone,  for  two  years, 
were  carried  more  than  4,000  men,  and  including  buildings,  docks, 
etc.,  there  was  used  in  18  months  by  the  writer  over  80,000,000  feet 
B.M. — equivalent  to  nearly  6,000  carloads — of  lumber,  brought  from 
Puget  Sound  and  the  Gulf  States. 

Then,  the  problem  of  feeding  this  army — remembering  that  it 
was  2,000  and  more  miles  from  its  base  of  supplies — was  a  great  one. 
After  much  deliberation,  the  plan  of  the  Commission  of  supplying 
meals  to  all,  excepting  those  married  employes  who  preferred  to  keep 
house  for  themselves,  was  adopted,  and  it  has  been  and  is,  despite  criti- 
cism, a  great  success.  Commissary  and  other  needed  supplies  are  sold 
to  employes  under  carefully-guarded  regulations,  generally  as  cheaply, 
and  in  some  cases  cheaper  than  the  same  cost  us  right  here  in  the 
United  States,  and  about  the  same  class  of  meals  is  furnished  in  the 
Commission  eating-houses  for  30  cents,  as  the  average  meal  through- 
out the  United  States  is  served  for  50  cents.  Of  course,  there  are 
and  will  be  complaints.  There  are  complaints  in  our  5  dollar-a-day 
hotels  here,  and  there  will  be  so  long  as  time  and  human  nature 
endures,  but  the  facts  are  as  stated.  The  record  made  by  the  Com- 
mission in  housing  and  caring  for  these  employes,  is  one  that  can  be 

20 


pointed  to  with  pride,  and  no  one  who  was  able  to,  and  would  work 
has  gone  hungry.  No  Dooley  can  say  as  on  another  occasion :  "Well, 
the  glorious  war  is  over,  and  the  byes  are  starving  at  Montauk,  as  they 
did  at  Tampa/' 

As  to  the  length  of  time  necessary  to  complete  the  canal :  This 
depends  upon  many  conditions,  some  of  them  which  may  change  so 
as  to  disarrange  all  calculations.  Two  years  ago,  the  writer  went  on 
record  that  the  work  should  be  done,  and  the  canal  opened  by  January 
1,  1915,  and  he  still  holds  to  this  opinion.  As  before  stated,  the  limit- 
ing factors  are  Gatun  Locks  and  Culebra  Cut.  No  night  work  has 
yet  been  done  at  either  place — at  Culebra,  while  it  is  possible,  it  is  not 
advisable ;  conditions  are  not  such  that  economical  night  work  there  is 
practicable — nor  is  it  necessary.  An  average  of  1,000,000  yards 
monthly  will  complete  this  Cut  in  4^  years,  and  last  month  this 
amount  was  taken  out,  but  a  rate  of  progress  possible  now  in  Culebra 
Cut,  cannot  be  maintained  during  the  removal  of  the  lower  part  of 
the  prism  for  several  reasons,  but  5  to  5£  years  should  be  ample,  and 
it  is  not  believed  that  the  locks  and  dam  at  Gatun  can  be  built  in  less 
than  that  time.  They  might  be,  by  working  night  and  day,  which 
plan  will  probably  be  pursued.  Conservatively  then,  allowing  proper 
time  for  contingencies,  7  years  more  should  see  the  canal  in  operation. 

Now,  as  to  its  probable  cost :  All  estimates  are  guesswork,  based 
upon  experience  gained  under  conditions  similar  to  the  ones  under 
consideration.  Without  entering  into  the  various  discussions  of  pre- 
vious or  present  time,  the  writer  believes  $200,000,000,  in  addition  to 
those  paid  the  French  company  and  Panama,  should  fully  complete 
the  canal,  as  well  as  cover  the  cost  of  necessary  adjuncts,  such  as 
government,  sanitation,  etc.  However,  such  changes  in  lock  plans,  as 
before  mentioned,  with  others  recently  discussed,  will  add  millions  to 
this  cost,  and  should  not  be  adopted  unless  for  better  reasons  than  have- 
yet  been  set  forth  publicly.  From  12  to  30  millions  can  easily  be 
added  by  such  changes,  and  so  any  estimate,  until  all  these  factors 
are  fully  determined,  is  largely  speculative.  In  any  case,  it  may  be 
taken  as  true,  if  any  previous  estimates  of  the  cost  of  the  lock  type  are 
proven  to  be  too  low,  as  based  on  original  plans,  then  it  is  absolutely 
certain  that  estimates  of  the  cost  of  a  sea-level  canal,  would  have  proven 
also  to  have  been  too  low,  to  a  very  much  more  marked  extent. 

The  most  practicable  questions  of  all  to  be  considered,  and  the 
correct  answers  to  which,  time  only  can  give,  are:  Of  what  benefit 

21 


will  this  canal  be  to  the  people  of  the  United  States,  who  are  mortgag- 
ing themselves  to  pay  for  it?  And,  will  it  pay,  measured  in  dollars 
and  cents  ? 

Taking  then  the  two  values,  the  military  and  the  commercial: 
As  far  as  the  former  is  concerned,  it  undoubtedly  will  be  of  some  value, 
but  not  to  the  great  extent  hastily  assumed.  If  the  United  States  is  to 
retain  its  place  among  the  first-class  powers,  nothing  appears  to  be 
clearer,  than  that  it  must  be  as  well  armed  as  its  neighbors — when  they 
disarm,  then  we  can,  and  not  until  then.  Peace  conferences  are  all 
right  theoretically,  but  so  far  no  evidence  has  been  given  that  anything 
of  value,  as  looking  towards  permanent  peace,  has  evolved  from  them. 
Indeed,  the  last  one  at  the  Hague,  to  judge  from  reports,  should  rather 
have  been  named  a  War  Conference,  as  it  dealt  mostly  with  ways  of 
amending  the  existing  rules,  so  as  to  enable  war  to  be  made  more 
easily.  The  United  States  must,  then,  maintain  a  big  navy,  and,  it  is 
believed,  two  of  them — one  on  the  Atlantic  and  one  on  the  Pacific 
Ocean. 

Nations  nowadays  when  intending  to  go  to  war,  do  not  publish 
their  intentions  and  wait  for  proposals — they  begin  to  fight  and 
declare  war  later  on — as  witness  the  recent  Japanese-Eussian  fracas. 
As  David  Harum  said,  "find  out  what  the  other  fellow  is  going  to  do  to 
you,  and  do  it  to  him  first"  will  be  the  policy,  and  this  view  is  empha- 
sized, when  yearly  it  becomes  more  evident  that  the  future  great  inter- 
national wars  will  be  fought  on  sea  and  not  on  land. 

With  the  Panama  Canal  completed,  it  will  take  a  modern  war 
fleet,  moving  as  a  unit,  at  least  17  days  to  steam  from  Hampton  Roads 
to  San  Francisco,  or  vice  versa;  and  17  days  is  a  long  time  to  wait 
when  13-inch  shells  are  mussing  up  one's  front  yard.  No,  the  idea 
that  a  nary  can  be  thrown  from  one  ocean  to  another,  like  a  hot 
potato  from  hand  to  hand,  does  not  appeal  to  a  practical  mind,  and  the 
writer  believes  that  a  navy  to  be  of  value  must  be  somewhat  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  the  trouble — which  will  come  quickly  if  it  comes 
at  all. 

And,  too,  as  the  improbable  is  what  generally  happens  at  such 
times,  supposing  in  case  of  war  with  some  of  our  Oriental  neighbors, 
that  the  enemy's  war  ships  should  quietly  elude  our  one  wandering 
tramp  fleet,  somewhere  in  the  vast  expanses  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and 


they  should  capture  the  Panama  Canal,  and  get  control  of  our  coal 
supply,  and  war  materials.  The  people  of  New  England  have  had  one 
vision  of  a  hostile  fleet  playing  hide-and-seek  on  the  Atlantic,  and  if 
memory  serves  correctly,  their  feelings  and  actions  at  the  time  did  not 
indicate  that  they  are  anxiously  looking  for  a  similar  experience.  No, 
rest  assured,  our  expenditures  for  a  proper  naval  program  will  not  be 
lessened,  but  will  rather  be  largely  increased  by  the  Panama  Canal,  and 
the  necessity  for  fully  protecting  it  in  time  of  war,  by  naval,  as  well  as 
by  land  defences. 

The  question  of  the  commercial  value  of  the  canal  to  the  United 
States,  is  one  upon  which  individual  judgment  will  vary  greatly. 
Without  assuming  to  take  decided  ground  either  pro  or  con,  it  may  be 
pertinent  to  call  attention  to  a  few  points  that  seem  to  bear  directly  on 
the  matter,  and  which  may  at  least  serve  to  give  food  for  thought  to 
those  who  may  be  interested. 

No  exact  records,  of  course,  exist,  but  as  nearly  as  can  be  deter- 
mined, not  to  exceed  5%  of  the  population  of  the  world  lives  south 
of  the  equator,  and  not  over  \\%  live  in  South  America  west  of  the 
Andes  Mountains,  and  the  great  majority  of  these,  are  people  whose 
wants  are  primitive,  and  whose  products  are  insignificant.  The  great 
bulk  of  the  people  of  South  America  live,  and  always  will,  east  of  the 
Andes,  in  Brazil,  Argentine  Republic,  Uruguay,  and  Paraguay,  and  all 
these  people,  both  east  and  west,  are  bound  by  ties  of  race,  of  family,  of 
business,  to  Europe,  and  east  of  the  Andes  Mountains  the  traffic  will 
gravitate  as  surely,  by  reason  of  the  immense  navigable  rivers  and  by 
the  systems  of  railway  now  being  constructed,  toward,  and  to  the 
Atlantic  Ocean,  as  an  apple  drops  from  a  tree  to  the  ground. 

We  need  no  Panama  Canal  to  give  us  the  cream  of  the  business 
from  Venezuela,  the  Guianas,  Brazil,  the  Argentine  Eepublic :  Do  we 
get  it?  No.  Today,  if  you  want  to  go  to  Brazil,  or  any  country  south 
of  there,  you  will  go  first  to  some  European  port  and  take  a  ship  from 
there  to  your  destination.  There  is  a  vast  empire  which  covers 
southern  Ecuador,  eastern  Peru,  all  of  Bolivia  and  western  Brazil; 
probably  1,000,000  square  miles  in  extent;  unsurpassed  in  timber, 
mineral  and  agricultural  wealth,  and  all  practically  lying  in  the 
water-shed  of  the  Amazon.  This  river  is  navigable  by  ocean  ships  to 
the  heart  of  this  country,  and  by  light  draft  vessels  to  the  very  foot- 


hills  of  the  Andes  Mountains.  Eailways  already  projected,  can  and 
will  be  built  eventually,  on  water  grades  to  connect  with  the  heads  of 
navigation  on  numerous  streams,  and  the  millions  of  tons  of  the 
products,  of  this  now  virgin  wilderness,  will  drop  down  the  Amazon 
by  the  cheapest  form  of  transportation,  and  will  have  the  world  for  a 
market.  As  the  writer  sees  the  future,  very  little  of  this  business  can 
or  will  be  forced  up,  and  over  the  high  summits  of  the  Andes  Moun- 
tains to  find  shipping  at  the  western  South  American  ports.  Traffic 
moves  along  the  lines  of  least  resistance,  and  only  a  temporary  violation 
of  natural  laws,  can  change  what  appears  to  be  written  as  the  future  of 
South  American  commerce. 

Let  us  take  a  concrete  instance,  which  is  clearly  outside  the  realm 
of  speculation:  The  Panama  Eailroad  yearly  handles  from  Panama 
to  Colon  about  700,000  sacks  of  coffee — about  75%  of  the  crop  grown 
in  the  western  part  of  the  Central  American  States.  Only  about  2Q% 
of  this  yearly  production  of  coffee  comes  to  the  United  States — the 
rest  goes  to  Europe;  and  this  division  of  the  through  east-bound  traffic 
on  the  Panama  Eailroad  is  nearly  correct  when  applied  to  all  classes  of 
shipments,  even  to  the  west-bound  business.  The  writer,  through  the 
Panama  Eailroad  handled  all  the  ships  that  called  at  Colon  and 
Panama,  or  La  Boca,  its  sea-port.  There  were  last  year  11  regular 
lines  of  steamships  doing  business  at  Colon,  9  of  them  flying  a  foreign 
flag,  and  two  of  them  the  American  flag,  and  of  these  two,  one  was  the 
Panama  Eailroad  Steamship  Co.,  owned  by  the  United  States  and 
employed  almost  exclusively  in  handling  canal  supplies ;  the  other  the 
United  States  Fruit  Company,  which  did  little  or  no  business  there. 
If,  then,  we  are  to  benefit  so  greatly  in  the  future,  by  business  trans- 
ported through  the  Panama  Canal,  why  do  we  not  benefit  to  a  greater 
extent,  now,  by  business  coming  over  the  Panama  Eailroad  ? 

By  reason  of  the  canal,  we  can  expect  nothing  from  Africa,  nor 
from  Australia,  nor  from  the  few  scattered,  insignificant,  from  a  traf- 
fic standpoint,  coral  islands  in  the  South  Pacific  Ocean.  What,  then, 
is  left  us  ?  The  trade  of  the  west  coast  of  the  United  States,  which  we 
have  already ;  that  of  Hawaii,  the  Philippines,  China  and  Japan.  Now, 
what  are  we  going  to  sell  these  people,  and  what  will  they  buy  from  us 
that  will  be  routed  through  the  canal  ? 

Coal?  We  can  hardly  mine  enough  now  to  keep  our  factories 
and  railroads  going  and  our  houses  warm,  and  besides  our  great  unde- 

24 


veloped  coal  resources,  lie  nearer  to  the  Pacific  Ocean  than  they  do  the 
Atlantic  or  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

Wheat  ?  By  10  years  from  now,  with  one-half  of  the  usual  yearly 
increase  in  our  population,  not  one  bushel  of  wheat  will  be  exported 
from  the  United  States ;  if  it  is,  it  will  go  by  the  way  of  our  Pacific 
ports. 

Lumber?  Within  a  very  short  time,  at  the  rate  we  are  now  ex- 
hausting our  forests,  we  will  be  importing  lumber,  and  already  German 
forestry  experts  have  looked  over  our  probable  wants,  and  are  now  rais- 
ing timber  in  Germany,  expecting  to  sell  it  to  us — as  they  undoubtedly 
will. 

Iron  and  iron  products?  China  has  iron  and  coal  to  a  much 
greater  extent  than  we  have,  and  we  can  hardly  hope  to  compete  with 
her  in  her  own  natural  markets,  in  the  face  of  her  cheap  labor,  even 
if  we  could  eliminate  the  cost  of  thousands  of  miles  of  transportation. 
Enough  is  known  of  the  immense  deposits  of  coal  and  iron  in  China  to 
warrant  the  belief  that  with  proper  development — which  is  sure  to  come 
— of  her  manufacturing  and  transportation  facilities  along  these  lines, 
that  she  will  in  the  future  be  able  to  control  the  markets  of  the  east, 
and  possibly  compete  with  us  right  here  at  home. 

Cotton  and  cotton  products?  Possibly,  we  may  along  this  line 
develop  considerable  trade,  but  we  have  to  watch  the  cotton  fields  of 
Egypt  and  Indies,  and  in  the  production  of  bread-stuff,  Siberia  will 
some  time  rival  if  not  outclass  the  United  States  and  the  northwest 
territory  combined. 

Hawaii  will  send  us  sugar — some  of  it  is  now  coming  by  way  of 
the  Tehuantepec  Railway,  recently  completed. 

What  the  Philippines  can  send  us,  no  no  can  now  tell ;  possibly 
lumber,  jute,  sugar  and  coffee.  So  far,  they  have  given  us  nothing  in 
return  for  vast  expenditures,  excepting  a  large  and  juicy  lemon. 

China  and  Japan  send  us  silks,  rice,  matting,  etc.,  but  thus  far  the 
ships  of  the  few  lines  that  are  plying  between  our  Pacific  ports  and 
those  of  Japan  and  China,  have  been  run  at  a  loss,  excepting  two 
foreign  lines,  which  are  heavily  subsidized,  and  altogether  the  prospect 

25 


of  enormous  shipments  to  us  from  China  and  Japan  does  not  seem  to 
be  flattering,  unless  such  shipments  are  made  of  raw  material,  like 
coal,  iron  and  lumber. 

The  center  of  population  of  the  United  States  is  already  a  long 
distance  west  of  the  Allegheny  Mountains,  and  the  cost  of  transporta- 
tion from  the  interior  to  the  Atlantic,  and  thence  over  the  long  route  by 
way  of  Panama,  will  undoubtedly  be  more  for  most  kinds  of  shipments, 
than  the  cost  directly  over  the  route  by  way  of  our  Pacific  ports. 

And  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  land  transportation  in  the 
United  States  has  not  come  to  a  standstill :  Our  western  railways  are 
becoming  more  and  more  a  factor,  and  our  Pacific  ports  of  greater 
importance  yearly.  Our  business  will  demand,  and  political  and  other 
interests  will  give  way,  so  that  the  necessary  funds  can  and  will  be 
secured  to  increase  the  capacity  of  the  present,  and  to  add  new  lines,  so 
that  as  the  productions  of  our  factories,  our  fields,  and  our  mines, 
increase,  so  will  the  means  of  transportation  multiply,  and  the  cost 
decrease,  from  the  interior  to  the  Pacific  Ocean. 

A  study  of  the  globe  will  reveal  that  as  comparing  the  northern 
with  the  southern  hemisphere,  the  former  contains  within  itself,  by 
reason  of  its  immensely  larger  land  areas,  by  far  the  greater  proportion 
of  all  that  is  of  material  value  in  the  world.  The  great  majority  of 
all  that  is  produced  and  of  all  that  is  consumed,  is  by  people  living 
north  of  tie  Tropic  of  Cancer.  Emigration  and  traffic,  therefore, 
moves  largely  on  parallel  lines  of  latitude,  and  not  of  longitude;  and 
just  so  long  as  the  demand  continues  as  it  is  now,  for  faster  and  faster 
transportation  of  every  product,  whether  perishable  or  not,  whether 
food  products  or  those  of  iron,  of  copper,  of  wood,  cotton,  lumber,  or 
any  other,  it  is  difficult  to  figure  out  any  great  tonnage  the  Panama 
Canal  will  handle,  in  which  the  United  States  will  be  directly  inter- 


The  case  of  Europe  is  different,  and  the  canal  will  undoubtedly  be 
of  large  benefit  to  her — much  more  than  it  will  be  to  the  United 
States.  Europe  has  its  tenacles  fastened  upon  the  trade  of  western 
South  and  Central  America — what  there  is  of  it.  Let  a  naked  native 
appear  on  the  sea-shore  in  the  tropics  with  a  canoe-load,  or  a  sack  of 
cocoa,  or  ivory  nuts,  or  of  copra,  and  the  chances  are  good  that  in  a 
couple  of  hours  the  smoke  of  a  German  steamer  will  show  up  on  the 

26 


horizon,  and  his  purchaser  is  at  hand — one  that  does  business  his  way, 
that  caters  to  his  wants,  and  who  does  not  try  to  sell  him  a  warming- 
pan  when  he  wants  a  pink  shirt  and  a  plug  hat. 

When  we  learn,  as  we  may,  that  some  form  of  reciprocity  in  our 
commercial  laws,  some  encouragement  of  our  merchant  marine,  such  as 
is  extended  to  its  subjects  by  other  countries,  is  a  necessity,  and  when 
we  realize — if  we  ever  can — that  our  belief  in  our  own  infallibility  and 
capacity,  is  not  shared  by  the  rest  of  the  world;  when  we  find  from 
bitter  experience,  that  conceit  is  not  the  only  valuable  asset  in  foreign 
trade,  and  that  some  concessions  must  be  made  to  secure  customers, 
then  possibly,  in  the  distant  future,  some  of  the  millions  going  into 
the  "big  ditch"  will  come  back  to  us,  and  the  generations  to  come  will 
grant  to  our  memories,  the  tribute  of  great  foresight. 

Granting  the  total  cost  of  the  canal  will  be,  exclusive  of  the  interest 
charge  during  construction,  as  it  is  now  claimed,  $300,000,000 :  The 
yearly  interest  on  this  amount  at  two  per  cent,  will  be  $6,000,000,  to 
which  must  be  added  the  cost  of  maintenance  and  operation,  say,  $2,- 
400,000,  also  a  sinking  fund  of  $10,000,000,  to  provide  at  the  end  of 
thirty  years  an  amount  sufficient  to  retire  the  bonds.  Thus  we  will 
have  a  yearly  charge  of  $18,400,000,  to  be  met  by  gross  earnings,  which 
must  come  from  tolls  on  passing  traffic.  The  Suez  Canal  was  thirty- 
six  years  in  attaining  a  yearly  traffic  of  11,160,000  net  tons.  This 
amount  of  traffic  applied  to  the  Panama  Canal,  with  a  rate  of  toll  of 
$1.50  per  ton — the  highest  rate  yet  suggested — would  give  a  gross 
yearly  revenue  of  $16,740,000 — $1,660,000  less  than  enough  to  meet 
fixed,  and  operating  charges  in  its  thirty-sixth  year. 

The  Suez  Canal,  opened  in  1870,  showed  a  net  tonnage  the  first 
year  of  400,000,  which  has  gradually  increased  in  thirty-six  years  to 
11,160,000  net  tons  in  1906  (and  by  net  tonnage  is  meant  the  actual 
tonnage  on  which,  under  our  rules  of  measurement,  tolls  would  be  col- 
lected), the  average  yearly  net  tonnage  since  being  approximately 
5,298,700,  which  at  $1.50  per  ton  would  produce  a  gross  revenue  of 
$7,948,050,  leaving  a  yearly  average  deficit,  if  applied  to  the  Panama 
Canal,  of  $10,451,950,  or  in  36  years,  an  accumulated  deficit  of  $376,- 
270,200,  to  which  may  be  added,  the  interest  charge— if  the  $300,000,- 
000  does  not  cover  it — during  the  period  of  construction,  making  a 
grand  total  of  $400,000,000,  which  must  be  provided  for  from  other 
sources  than  earnings. 

27 


Plainly,  then,  the  Panama  Canal  must  handle  a  larger  tonnage 
each  year  from  the  very  opening  than  the  Suez  Canal  did  after  thirty- 
sir  years,  as  any  rate  of  toll  calculated  to  make  it  self-sustaining  would 
be  simply  prohibitory.  Still,  he  is  a  rash  man,  who  recklessly  assumes 
the  role  of  the  prophet  as  regards  the  extension,  and  the  possibilities  of 
commerce.  We  had  better  trust  that  the  brighest  dreams  will  be  real- 
ized, and  let  the  coming  generations  do  the  worrying  about  the  financial 
future  of  the  completed  canal. 

Meanwhile,  for  any  one  who  has  the  opportunity  and  inclination  to 
take  a  three-weeks'  trip  from  New  York,  there  certainly,  in  the  same 
time  and  at  the  same  expense,  cannot  be  found  elsewhere  in  the  world, 
so  many  things  in  which  every  American  should  take  a  deep  interest,  as 
can  be  found  in  a  week's  visit  to  the  Canal  Zone. 


romwhichftwas  borrawed. 


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